Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
by OtterAndTerrier
Summary: [COMPLETE] After the war, once Hermione and Ron retrieve her parents' memories and bring them back from Australia, her relationship with them is decidedly damaged. And why are they insisting that there's something wrong with her? Could they be right? After all, parents know best.
1. Epilogue - I

**Full summary:** For years, things had already been confusing enough between Hermione and her parents, what with her spending most of her time at Hogwarts and the wizarding world. But after the war, once she and Ron retrieve their memories and bring them back from Australia, their relationship is decidedly damaged. And why are they insisting that there's something wrong with _her_? Could they be right? After all, parents know best.

 **Warnings:** Angst, various symptoms of anxiety and PTSD, blood, needles, implicit suicide attempt, mentions of self-harm

 **Disclaimer:** Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended. Any recognizable names are not based on real institutions or persons.

 **A/N:** I recently took part in the 2015 Harry Potter Horror Fest hosted by the hp_darkarts community at LJ, and this was my first submission.

A million thanks to **aloemilk** for the valuable information about mental illnesses and for patiently answering my questions as I fleshed out the plot! I couldn't have done this (or would have done a really poor job) without your help. Any mistakes on this topic are mine. Thanks to **theweightofmywords** as well for beta-reading this. There's a scene heavily inspired by a popular book and now TV show series. Fans might recognize it, but since the author is explicitly against fanfiction, it shall go uncredited.

I really loved writing this and I like how it turned out. I'm also excited because it's got the first more or less explicit smut scene I've posted so far. Please mind the warnings, as it's a _horror_ fest and there might be triggering content, but let me know what you thought of it if you read it!

Inspired by the prompt: After the war, she is feeling perfectly well, thank you very much. No mental illness, nothing. However, everyone around her seems convinced that she is very ill, enough to lock her up in a mental hospital and run batteries of tests on her every day, despite her claims that all is fine...

* * *

 **Prologue**

The searing pain in her body and the numbness of her brain awakened a memory in her. A shout, followed by a rushing sound before the invisible force hit her. The questioning. The taunts. The distant, muffled yells that somehow brought her back when her mind seemed to slip away. Her life flashing before her eyes. She wasn't breathing anymore...

She woke up with a gasp, her heart thumping against her sore heaving chest. Something wasn't right. She was not in the dark, aristocratic manor that haunted her nightmares. The light above her was bright, her surroundings painfully white. She tried to shield her eyes, but her hand was tugged back: they were tied down. She moved her feet. Tied as well.

Her eyes watering, she took in the sounds around her, none of which made sense. Whispers, the rustling of clothes. The sound of something rubbery being pulled and released. Artificial beeping.

A hand pulled her eyelids wide open as a closer, brighter light blinded her.

 _What is going on?_

'Your daughter is all right, only confused at the moment. We're going to take good care of her,' a man close to her said.

Daughter. She was someone's daughter. She had parents. And her parents...

They were the ones who had put her there.

* * *

 **I.**

'Where are you going?' her mother asked her as Hermione made for the door. She was startled at first: the living room looked empty and she hadn't expected anyone to be up yet.

'To the Ministry of Magic,' she replied. 'I'm meeting Ron and Harry there, we're helping out with some things...'

Hermione trailed off. She never knew how much to tell her parents. Before, it was partly because she knew that it might put them in danger one day. But it had always been more than that. She just didn't know how much her parents understood, how much they could grasp within the ever logical brains they had bequeathed her. She didn't know how much they really cared about the life of their estranged only daughter whose world had at some point become different than theirs, so much more different, a world they would never fully see. Things had only become worse after what she'd done to them.

'I don't think you should go out, sweetheart,' her mother said quietly.

Hermione frowned.

'What? Why not?'

'We've heard you,' her dad said, making her jump again as he, too, spoke from the shadows of the room. 'You scream in your sleep. You cry when you lock yourself up in the bathroom. You are jumpy most of the time. You continue with this...'

Her dad pursed his lips. Hermione didn't know what he'd been about to say.

'We just don't think you should go out on your own at the moment, where we can't see you, if you're not telling us where you're really going,'

'What do you mean by that?' Hermione said. An ugly feeling was spreading from her stomach to her throat. 'I just told you I'm going to the Ministry of Magic. I don't even have to walk; I can Apparate straight there. And Ron will be there, with Harry; I won't be alone.'

Her parents exchanged a look, but she ignored it.

'As for the other part...' She took a deep breath. 'I've told you part of what happened this past year. There are a lot of things that I haven't... that I can't... I can't tell you yet. It hasn't been easy. But it's nothing. I've got Ron. We're helping each other.'

'Hermione, your father and I think you need help. Professional help,' her mum clarified.

Something relaxed inside of her. They were only worried about her. She couldn't blame them; she was worried about herself, too. Her sleep was interrupted several times every night when she woke up gasping after feeling as if she had stopped breathing, as if her heart had given up. Looking at her still bruised, burnt, _cut cut cut everywhere_ body when she went to take a bath made her cry. She would jump up, heart on her throat, whenever the lady next door laughed with her booming voice, or when the kids in the neighbourhood shrieked in their games. There was nothing Ron could do to make those things go away.

'I think that would be great, but the problem is that I can't go to a Muggle therapist or something. It really wouldn't help if I've got to lie about everything, and I can't risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy. I don't know if St. Mungo's is equipped with mental health professionals, I mean, they've got the Janus Thickey Ward, but that's for spell damage...'

Another exchanged look. Then, her mother said, 'Richard, we've got to talk to her, this is getting out of our control.'

The ugly feeling was back, threatening to choke her.

'What is it? Dad, what are you not telling me?'

Her father sighed and grimaced, as if he were about to take a spoonful of some horrible medicine.

'Hermione, your mother and I have been talking, and we've decided that this has gone on for too long. You're going to be nineteen this year, you can't keep up with this delusion of yours... It's partly our fault, we should have done something sooner, before it got worse... we've let this settle and grow within you, while we thought it was just a phase. We thought it was going to go away on its own, but we've been so wrong—'

'What are you talking about? What delusion?' Hermione felt a shiver run down her spine. It was exactly like one of her recurring dreams. Next thing they were going to say that Ron was d—

No. It couldn't be. 'Dad, you're scaring me. Please just tell me—'

'You can't keep talking about witches, wizards and magic,' her mum said suddenly, looking pleadingly at her. 'You can't keep talking about a war and _Hogwarts_...'

'Mum,' Hermione said, 'what? I still don't—'

'Stay with us for a while. Just the three of us. _Pretend_ ,' her dad said, holding up a hand to her wife and putting an odd sort of emphasis into the word, 'that you are... like us. Don't talk about magic. Could you do that? We've been through so much, sweetheart... We deserve this.'

There it was, the guilt. Hermione knew that it might come up at some point, but she kept hoping her parents wouldn't resort to that. She'd wronged them, now she couldn't say no to whatever they asked from her: that was the implicit drill. Still, Hermione reckoned she owed them to at least make an effort.

'Fine,' she said. 'I can do that.'

The ominous feeling in her gut hadn't gone away, though. There was something she'd missed, something that didn't make sense. But her mother was smiling at her, her father looked pleased, and Hermione thought it was a sign of hope. Things would get better, for all of them.

* * *

Things did not get better.

That first day, Hermione went up to her bedroom to put her wand away. If her parents didn't want her to talk about magic, she reckoned _doing_ magic was out of the question, too.

There wasn't much else to hide: she had left most of her magical belongings in her school trunk the year before, and hadn't brought it back from The Burrow yet. Hermione felt safe knowing that part of her was there when she wasn't, that she could leave her things there and it wouldn't matter because she would always come back. She did have her enchanted beaded bag close by, although now it contained half of the stuff she'd taken to the hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes.

Hermione put both things, wand and bag, inside her chest of drawers. She regretted not having an owl, but not for long: Pigwidgeon flew into her bedroom that day after dinner carrying Ron's worried letter, asking why she hadn't showed up at the Ministry. He would have Apparated straight to her house if it wasn't for her parents: they hadn't been very welcoming to him so far. She wasted no time in writing a reply:

 _Ron,_  
I'm sorry I couldn't make it. It's my parents. They want me to... act Muggle for a while, for their benefit. I know, it sounds mental, but I really want to fix things with them. It's awful to think that your family fears you, or even hates you. I want to show them I'm the same as always.  
Please don't worry about me. It might take a couple of weeks, but I'll be all right. If you send Pig, do it at night so they don't see him.  
Love,  
Hermione

Ron's second letter, telling her that she was mental but he loved her anyways, came later the following day. She knew Ron had meant well, but Pig had been unfortunate enough to come through the kitchen's window while she was playing Scrabble with her parents. There came the tearful pleads for Hermione to stop communicating with 'that boy and his trained birds'. Hermione had to send Pig back without a reply.

Several days passed. Her parents would take her to a myriad of events in the Muggle world, play all the old board games from her childhood and a couple of new ones they bought, set books they were all to read and discuss. It felt nice, Hermione thought. Like the old times, before the letter revealing what she was and where she really belonged came.

But now was not before. Now she'd seen the wizarding world. She'd lived like a witch. She'd fallen in love with someone like her. At the end of the first week, Hermione ached for _her_ world, and for the people in it. She missed Ron most of all: she missed seeing him laugh, hearing his jokes, laying next to him and feeling him there when she woke up.

She got up that Sunday with visions of a bright, long day at The Burrow. She needed it. She needed _him_.

Hermione thought it was only right to let her parents know she was going. They had to understand.

They hadn't.

Like a déjà vu, Hermione heard the same things they had told her on that first day: _'it's a delusion', 'you are a grown up now', 'stop talking about magic', 'stop seeing that boy!'_

Her head began to spin; the ugly, terrible feeling was back.

 _What do you mean? What do you mean?_

'You are not a witch!' her mother shrieked. 'There's no magic school, there's no Dark Lord, there's no Ministry of Magic! You have always deluded yourself thinking that you were special, and we let it happen, but it needs to stop!'

A cold weight dropped onto the pit of Hermione's stomach. She would have laughed, thinking it was some bizarre April Fool's joke that her parents somehow found funny, but amusement was the last thing she felt.

'Mum,' she said, making an effort to sound calm and rational. 'It's not... it's not a delusion. You were with me when Professor McGonagall visited us and brought my first Hogwarts letter. You went with me to Diagon Alley for the first two years. You saw the goblins... remember the goblins, Mum? Dad?'

They were both shaking their heads silently.

'What do you mean, "no"?' Hermione asked, suddenly feeling angry. 'Yes, you saw them! And the Weasleys! Where did you think I went to every year if not to Hogwarts?'

'Hallford. You were full board at Hallford School, not Hogwarts. It's a school for special cases. Like yours.'

Hermione couldn't contain her voice from trembling in outrage and hurt. That was not the story they had agreed on, so many years ago.

'Special cases? That's what you've really been telling people about me, that I'm a "special case"?'

'No, sweetheart,' her mum said. The word, yet lovingly said, sounded bitter to Hermione, a lie. 'You _have_ been going to Hallford. You were a gifted child, we thought it was your best chance. But then you started with this delusion... We thought it only happened when you were at home, so we let you stay there for the holidays whenever you wanted to, have an early start, too. Then you escaped and you showed up in the middle of our holidays in Australia with _that_ boy, talking about this... this nonsense again, about a war, about how _you_ had sent us there, and we knew it'd never left you. You didn't get better, you got worse. And we don't know what to do! We can't keep pretending that we know what we're doing, that you'll just get better, because now you're screaming and crying at night, and you're hurt; you're hiding something, and you won't tell us. We need to get you help. We love you, Hermione, but we don't know—'

Her mum broke down in sobs. Hermione felt immobilized, frozen on the spot. She looked to her dad. Why wasn't anyone shouting, "Just kidding, can't believe you fell for that!", like she kept wishing they did? She wanted to speak, but her mouth was bone-dry.

'I think it's best if we leave now. We've found an adequate facility, they will be able to tell us what we can do to help and to take care of you in the meantime,' her dad said in turn.

Hermione managed to shake her head. It felt oddly heavy.

'A facility? You mean a mental hospital? _You think I'm insane?_ '

Her father began to say that no, they weren't saying she was crazy, but she obviously had trouble separating reality from imagination, placing a hand on her arm as he spoke. Something overcame Hermione in that moment. A red, angry feeling, mixed with fear. They were taking her away, again. They were going to hurt her.

'NO!' she yelled, wrenching her arm back. The three light bulbs over the kitchen's counter shattered. Hermione could hear her heart thumping, the blood pulsing in her ears. She knew she'd done that; her magic was getting out of control. But she couldn't calm down.

'Hermione, please, don't make this any harder,' her mum begged her. 'It's for the best—'

She made to lay both hands on Hermione's shoulder; again, it made Hermione feel trapped. She closed her eyes and pushed her off: there was a loud sound of something hitting against the wooden table, of chairs being jostled about, and her mum was whimpering. Scared, Hermione opened her eyes. _Her mum_ was what had hit the table. She was clutching her head, her eyes wide in terror. Hermione hadn't meant to shove her.

 _What did I do?_

Without looking at neither of her parents, she ran upstairs and into her bedroom, collapsing in tears on the floor at the foot of her bed.

She didn't understand, but there was no time to understand. She needed to get away from there. Her house, most unfortunately, had been enchanted to make it impossible for anyone to Apparate or Disapparate inside; she would have to go out and find a safe spot. But aside from the fact that she would have to face her parents if she went downstairs, Hermione didn't think she'd be able to Disapparate without seriously splinching herself, in her state. Her house was not connected to the Floo Network. She didn't know how to make a Portkey. She needed help to leave, but how was she supposed to get it? She didn't have an owl, and it would have taken too long, in any case.

Hermione considered her only choice. She lunged for her chest of drawers: her wand was nestled between piles of socks and underwear. Taking a deep breath and urging herself to calm down, Hermione thought of Ron.

' _Expecto Patronum!_ '

A wavering light sprouted from the end of her wand and vanished as soon as it came. She wasn't trying hard enough.

Hermione thought of Ron again, but this time she tried to recall specific things about him: the way it had felt when he'd kissed her back that first time, the sheepish grin he'd given her after he'd kissed her the second time, his arms around her when he hugged her, the first time they slept together. Her chest felt warm with the happiness that thinking about Ron gave her, and she tried again.

 _'Expecto Pat—'_

There were the sounds of someone coming up the stairs; a second later, her dad was knocking at her door.

'Hermione!'

Hermione flinched and threw her wand under the bed, remembering what her magic had done. _I didn't mean it. I wasn't doing magic on purpose._

The knocking became more insistent; she could tell her mum was adding up to the noise now, two pairs of hands banging at her door.

'Hermione, we need to talk! You need to tell us what happened to you! Why did you go to Australia? Why do you look as if you've been beaten? Did Ron do it? Did he make you do something bad?'

 _What are they talking about?_ Hermione thought desperately. _I already told them!_

'HERMIONE!'

'Tell us the truth!'

The banging didn't stop. The lights in her room were off, but the daylight itself seemed to dim. Her room seemed to rock like a boat; she slid to the floor again, pressing her palms down against the cool wood boards. The air felt chilly, settling into her bones.

'Tell the truth!'

'HERMIONE! HERMIONE!'

She could hear him. _She could hear him_ , clear as a bell, when Bellatrix lifted her wand and left her writhing: his yells and her sobs. She remembered how he offered to take her place before, and all she could think of now was how glad she was he hadn't. No one should have to feel this pain.

Hermione thought she ought to be concentrating on her story right now, lest she let something slip, but she knew she wouldn't. She'd die first.

 _Bang bang bang._

 _'HERMIONE!'_

 _'Tell the truth, girl!'_

'NOOOOO!' Hermione wailed, curling into a ball. She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder: Bellatrix had kicked her now.

'I already told you!' she sobbed, her voice small. 'I've told you everything I know! Please, let me go!'

Bellatrix laughed; Hermione could hear her coming close to her, the smell of sweat and rot filling her nostrils.

 _'You're good as dead, girl_ ,' Bellatrix whispered in her ear, laughing again as a pair of strong arms grabbed Hermione and everything went black.


	2. II

**II.**

The surface she was lying on was soft, she could tell, moulding to her body, but Hermione's back, especially the area around her right shoulder, felt as sore and stiff as if she'd been sleeping on a rock. Her first thought was that she'd had another rough night; her muscles had contracted in her sleep. But she couldn't pin down what had happened before falling asleep. She didn't remember going to bed or even any memory of a bad dream. Hermione probed the insides of her mouth with her tongue: there was a bitter, repulsive taste that wasn't just from lack of brushing her teeth.

She opened her eyes, squinting, and tried to take in her surroundings. It was not her bedroom or any room she could identify; by the simplicity and medical cleanness of it, she could tell it was a hospital room. There was no one else there.

Then, she remembered. Hermione had been in Malfoy Manor again, but it hadn't felt like any other nightmare. She _was_ there. She could feel everything, with all five senses. She couldn't wake up. She had blacked out at some point, knowing she was about to die. The next thing she knew, there were people talking to her, holding down her arms firmly but with a certain gentleness, taking her pulse, pushing a cup against her lips; she'd thought it was Bill and Fleur. She had started to sob and asked for Ron; she was sure she'd said something else but she couldn't remember what it was. Then she had fallen asleep, exhausted. Her head still felt woozy.

'Good, you're awake!' said a cheerful voice, startling Hermione. Her eyes darted to the direction of the sound: the doorway through which a dark haired nurse was bustling in. Seeing Hermione's reaction, she stopped dutifully on the spot and said in a soothing manner, 'It's all right. How are you feeling? Do you need anything?'

'I'm sore. And confused,' Hermione said. 'What happened? My parents... Where am I?'

'You are at St. Kingsmark Hospital. The doctor will be here in a minute. He'll talk to you,' the nurse replied, now moving slowly to the side table. 'Want some water?'

Hermione nodded and accepted a cup. As she took the last gulp, a bespectacled, middle-aged man with a clipboard came in, smiling cordially at her. The nurse also gave her an encouraging smile and went out, leaving the two of them alone.

'Hello, I am Dr. Harmon. Could you tell me your name?'

'I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger.'

'Do you know what year is it?'

'1998.'

'Good,' the doctor said. 'Do you remember who's the Prime Minister?'

'Shacklebolt,' Hermione said, and a second too late, she realized her mistake. 'I mean—Tony Blair. It's Tony Blair.'

A slight frown appeared on the doctor's face, but he didn't comment on her faux pas.

'Do you remember what happened? How did you get here?'

'I was...' Hermione started, then screwed up her face, thinking. She had been at home, for a long time, just her and her parents. She'd wanted to see Ron—it was a Sunday, she'd wanted to go to The Burrow. But her parents hadn't approved; they said she had to stay. They said she was delusional. And then she'd pushed her mum, and her body had felt so wired with anger, pain and contained magic that she'd shoved her off a little too hard. Hermione remembered running upstairs and, afterwards, all she knew was that she was back at Malfoy Manor.

She shook her head.

'Okay, then,' the doctor said patiently. 'Your parents called 999, requesting for an ambulance. They said you three had had an argument, then you locked yourself up. They heard you screaming and in clear distress, heard a loud noise, and as you wouldn't open the door, they thought you might be in danger. Could you tell me what happened during those moments? Do you remember any of it?'

Hermione shook her head even though she did. She was in Muggle territory now; how could she ever tell Dr. Harmon that yes, she remembered the banging and the yelling; she remembered feeling the Cruciatus Curse again, torturing every fibre of her body; she remembered herself telling lies about the sword of Gryffindor, and Bellatrix's voice whispering to her that she was about to die. It was enough, she thought with a pang, that her own parents believed her insane. She didn't need anyone else adding up to that opinion.

'I... I think I remember the paramedics giving me some water,' she tried. 'I didn't see them coming in, though, and I passed out shortly afterwards.'

The doctor nodded.

'They broke through the door to get to you and they... brought you back, so to speak. You were still very upset, so they gave you a mild sedative, ground and mixed in your water.'

That explained the lingering taste in her mouth.

'What do you mean by "brought me back"?' Hermione asked, frowning and pushing herself up against the pillows. She winced as the muscles on her back tensed.

'Don't worry; the paramedics have checked you. It's only a large bruise,' Dr. Harmon assured her. 'A consultant will see you again later.'

The doctor drew one of the visitor chairs and sat down next to her, giving Hermione the impression of someone paying a visit at a relative's sickbed.

'According to the paramedics, you showed signs of being experiencing a flashback to a traumatic event,' Harmon said, looking her in the eye. 'Especially after your parents confirmed you couldn't have fallen asleep in that time frame. Do you remember what the flashback was about?'

'I was, though,' Hermione lied. 'I did fall asleep. I think I was just too—'

She closed her mouth. The Muggle doctor couldn't possibly use Legilimency against her, but she didn't think he needed to, in any case. Hermione doubted whatever state the paramedics had found her in resembled a quiet kip whatsoever.

'Do you remember what your argument with your parents was about?' he asked, apparently changing the approach. Unfortunately, that question also led to matters Hermione couldn't disclose to him, so she changed her "I-don't-remember-a-thing" speech, too.

'It's private.'

She knew doctors couldn't force her to talk about anything if she didn't want to.

'Look, Hermione, I'm going to be honest with you,' Harmon said, leaning forwards on his arms crossed over his legs. 'We have been talking with your parents—'

'About what?' she exclaimed, moving so brusquely that her back throbbed again. 'What did they say?'

'It doesn't matter right now; what we would really like to do is talk with _you_. We believe you may be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. There's not much we can do to help you unless you cooperate with us, though.'

'I appreciate your concern, doctor, but really... I'm fine. I will be fine,' Hermione said, using her calmest, most rational voice. 'I really need to go home. If you could just discharge me...'

'Well, your parents did call about an emergency, and because of what the paramedics saw, we need to run a couple of routine tests. I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until we get the results. If everything is all right, since you are legally an adult, you may go. However, your parents seem very concerned about you, and like I said, we've been talking to them.' Harmon pushed his glasses up his nose, his slicked blond hair glinting in the light overhead. 'If you are or have experienced any type of trauma, directly or indirectly, feel emotionally distressed or feel that anything is off health-wise, we can help you. You only need to—'

'Talk to you, yes,' Hermione finished for him.

'Think about it,' Harmon said, finally getting to his feet. 'A nurse and another doctor will be here soon for your check-up. Meanwhile, your parents are still here. Would you like to see them?'

 _You have always deluded yourself thinking that you were special, and we let it happen, but it needs to stop!_

Hermione swallowed through her tight throat. They had brought her here to help her, hadn't they? They were still here, after everything she'd done, waiting to know if she was all right. They were her parents, whatever else they had become. And she had wronged them.

She nodded.

* * *

When her parents came in, it made Hermione think back to the time she had her tonsils removed. They had been so reassuring to her about the surgery that she wouldn't have guessed how worried they really had been until she woke up to them next to her bed: the Grangers had never spoiled their only child, but in that moment they had been doting, catering to Hermione's every wish. Now, the scenario was not much different. Her mum rushed to wrap her sheets more snugly around her; her dad was overly solicitous, asking whether he could get her anything, showing her the book he'd got for her in the store across the street.

It was not the same, though; it was never going to be the same. What Hermione wanted was for them to tell her their version of what had happened, and most importantly, what they had talked about with the doctors. Her questions caused an abrupt change in the atmosphere, breaking the illusion of times past. They exchanged shifty looks, but told her more or less what Dr. Harmon had already said: that after she'd locked herself, she had started screaming and crying, that they heard a loud noise, as if she'd hit herself against something, and so they had called for an ambulance in case she was hurt (and because they were afraid of her, Hermione thought). The paramedics had broken through the door and found her writhing on the floor, shouting and crying ('What was I saying?' she asked. 'Oh, I don't really remember, sweetheart... we were both so worried about you!'). They asked her parents whether she had been taking any medicines or other substances to their knowledge and, when they said no, had given her a sedative. Then they had all driven here and had been waiting for her to wake up so they could run some tests.

'Honey, we can't hold you in here, but I really think you could use some help,' her mother was saying now. 'You've been really distressed lately, but what happened earlier... It was really scary. We don't think you should be dealing with all this by yourself.'

Hermione thought that by "scary" her mum was not talking only about the scene in her bedroom. She could see a big bump on her mother's forehead; she could have had a concussion. And it was because of her.

'We believe you should talk to Dr. Harmon,' her dad said. 'He's a psychiatrist, he was very nice to us and I know he's a good professional.'

Maybe there was a way for the doctors to help her without her having to give too much information, after all, Hermione thought. She wouldn't lie, not necessarily, and they'd be able to prescribe her something for her anxiety. She couldn't let herself go home with the possibility that she might get riled up and end up hurting one of her parents again.


	3. III

**III.**

She was determined to look away, her fist clenched so tight that her nails were biting into the palm of her hand, but Hermione could feel the pushing of the needle, breaking a tiny hole into her skin and vein, and the indescribable feeling of the blood being sucked up and out of her. The needle came out and Hermione released the breath she had been holding, her arm going slack after the nurse untied the rubber band around it. She couldn't help but peek at the syringe, filled with her thick, tomato-red blood; it made her queasy.

'I haven't had a blood test done in almost two years, I think,' Hermione said weakly. 'What is this for, exactly?'

'Mainly to corroborate that you're not on any medication or substance—' said a new doctor, walking into the room at that moment.

'I already told you that I'm not!' Hermione protested.

'—but we're also going to check for other possible things that could have caused an imbalance in your body and the flashback-like episode you experienced,' the doctor said, talking over Hermione. She was a brown-skinned, squat woman, with a voice that was both kind and authoritarian, the sort that wasn't used to people interrupting her. 'I'm Dr. Dhaliwal, and I know that you have stated you haven't been abusing alcohol, drugs or medication, but we need to run the tests all the same. 'Now kindly go and take a pee into this cup.'

Hermione left the room's tiny loo and handed Dr. Dhaliwal, who was still standing there, the cup filled with yellow liquid.

'Oh, good thing you took your time about it,' she said briskly, although her mouth twitched in the attempt of a smile.

Hermione grunted an apology and sat back on the bed.

'What now?'

'I'm going to do a physical examination,' the woman said, stepping closer.

'Is that really necessary?' Hermione said nervously. 'Dr. Harmon said the paramedics have already checked me, I've only got a bruise.'

'Recent, yes, it's only a bruise, but the paramedics saw more than that. And yes, based on what they witnessed, we _are_ required to examine you, Miss Granger,' she said before Hermione could protest again.

She started by lifting Hermione's chin and using her gloved fingers to gently stretch the skin of her throat.

'Can you tell me how old is this cut?'

'About three months,' Hermione said, bracing herself. She didn't need a medical diagnosis of her many old injuries; she'd already had it. Madam Pomfrey had told her that the injuries caused by certain magical elements, like Bellatrix's knife and the burns she'd got from the enchanted treasure and the Fyendfire would take longer to fade, and as for the rest, Hermione knew she'd always had a sensitive skin, she didn't expect them to vanish overnight. That didn't mean she fancied Muggle doctors seeing any of it and asking questions.

'May I ask how did you get it?'

'Accident.'

'Mhm,' the doctor said, sceptically. 'Remove your gown, please.'

Hermione pulled the thin medical gown over her head, sitting there in her underwear. Dr. Dhaliwal extended her arms, turning them this way and that; then she moved to her back, occasionally using her hands to better examine a scar or bruise. Hermione flinched slightly as she came close to the aching spot on her shoulder.

'Were all these also caused by an accident?' the doctor asked candidly.

'Yes.'

'Must've been a big one, or you are really clumsy,' she muttered under her breath.

'I've already had those checked, and they are old in any case, unrelated to what I reckon I'm here for,' Hermione said shortly.

'You sure?'

Hermione glowered at her.

'Yes, quite.'

'Had you experienced something like what happened earlier before?'

'No, this was the first time. I'd only had bad dreams before, at night.'

'Panic attacks?'

'What would those be, exactly?'

'An abrupt sensation of intense fear, where you might feel like you are having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown; you might have palpitations, feel dizzy, short of breath, start to hyperventilate, experience tunnel vision, start trembling... things like that,' Dr. Dhaliwal explained. 'Have you experienced any of those or similar symptoms? Anything out of the ordinary, that starts all of a sudden?'

'Yes,' Hermione said, her chest tightening. 'I, um... sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, I feel like I've stopped breathing and I wake up very agitated and feel short of breath for a while. But that's about it. I felt really dizzy once, and I started trembling and sweating, but I had just got out of an aeroplane, so reckon that was why.'

She didn't mention that at the time she had also been terrified about both possibilities of finding and not finding her parents in Australia.

'How are your eating habits lately?'

'I usually only have tea for breakfast and a piece of toast because I feel queasy eating anything else, and then lunch and dinner as always.'

'No lack of appetite, any other habits?'

'Well, yes... I suppose I eat less now,' Hermione said, frowning.

'Are you menstruating regularly?'

'Not really.'

'Do you think you could be pregnant?' the doctor asked, making Hermione jump.

'N—no! I'm definitely not pregnant!'

'Okay, we'll find out in your tests' results, anyway. How many full hours of sleep do you think you have per night?'

'Six, sometimes five, on average,' Hermione said, feeling disgruntled at the suggestion of a pregnancy and the fact that the other woman didn't think her word was enough.

'How are you feeling right now? Have you got any of the symptoms you've described? Did you have your pressure taken?'

'Yes, the nurse did it, said it was all right,' Hermione answered. 'I'm feeling fine, really.'

'Good. Well, I'm going to discuss this with Dr. Harmon and I'll get back to you when the results are ready,' Dr. Dhaliwal said at last, making for the door. 'Sit tight and don't worry, all right?'

* * *

They kept telling her not to worry, but worry was all Hermione could do. Once the tests were done, they had brought her a light lunch, which she ate alone, sitting on the immaculate hospital bed like a convalescent patient. And to think merely hours earlier she'd been looking forward to a hearty meal out in the open, surrounded by the people she loved!

It gave her time to think, however. It was clear that her word and will didn't count for much at the moment; she would just have to stay calm and be the picture of sanity until the results were back proving that she was indeed not on drugs and therefore reliable. Then they would be able to prescribe her something and she'd be good to go.

It was more challenging than she'd thought. After lunch, Dr. Harmon had come to talk to her again, if she was up for it. Of course she had to be up to it. Good people, sane people, haven't got any reason not to be up to it. He'd asked about the things she had already told Dr. Dhaliwal, so she had to repeat everything for him; then he asked when she'd started experiencing those symptoms, including the lack of appetite and insomnia. Hermione had to think about it for a moment. During their months camping, she'd had to learn how to shut down her stomach and endure the lack of food. She hadn't felt a real lack of appetite until Ron left, though. She'd had trouble sleeping then, too, but it was mainly because she kept waiting to hear him calling for them, looking for the tent, and because she couldn't stop crying. Her period had skipped a couple of times entirely as well, the stress and malnourishment they were under finally taking a toll. But it was only after what happened at Malfoy's that she had started having the worst nightmares, spending half the night awake in fear; she was starving, but sometimes she felt as if she couldn't choke down her food. The other things had started after the battle, and she was ashamed every time. How could she be feeling so jumpy, so frightened, when they were finally safe, when it was over?

She told the doctor it all had started about three months ago, to simplify things.

'Do you know what caused them?' the man asked.

'Yes. But I don't... I really can't talk about it.'

'You know this is confidential, don't you? You don't have to be afraid of anyone coming back to hurt you here, no one's going to find out what you've said to us.'

'It's not that, I just can't talk about it,' Hermione said firmly, again.

'All right. Could you at least tell me the nature of the problem? Stress about school, problems with friends, an argument with your parents, a fight with a boyfriend?'

 _War_ , Hermione thought. _It was a war, you idiot, and you know nothing about it, you know nothing about what I've been through and I've got no way to tell you._

'It was a... a sort of fight, but not with friends or a boyfriend or even my parents. I really can't explain,' Hermione said, hoping that would settle the matter. Why couldn't they treat her symptoms and leave the story behind them alone?

The doctor took some notes and asked, 'You were in school last year, right?'

'Yes,' Hermione lied automatically.

'Hallford School, is that correct?'

'No,' Hermione said, her heart crushing again inside her chest. So her parents had stuck to that story. 'It's called Hogwarts.'

'Hogwarts? I've never heard of it.'

'You wouldn't. It's a select school for gifted children, and it's in Scotland,' Hermione said quickly. 'My parents always get the name mixed up.'

She smiled indulgently.

'Right,' the doctor said, looking at her straight in the eye. 'Your parents said you went to look for them while they were on a holiday trip in Australia, even though the school term wasn't over. Is that true?'

Hermione hesitated before answering.

'Yes.'

'Why was that?'

'I just missed them,' Hermione lied, although she couldn't keep a hint of bitter sarcasm out of her tone. She tried to fix it. 'I'd already finished taking all my exams, so I was free to go. It doesn't work like most schools. That's why I went to Australia, I thought it'd be a good idea to surprise them.'

'You went with your boyfriend?'

'I did,' Hermione said, feeling a cold sensation swooping over her to settle on her stomach at the thought of Ron. He needed to know where she was. He would know what to do; he could vouch for her story. And if they still didn't believe her and wouldn't let her go, it wouldn't matter: he could bring her wand— _her wand_ , why had she dropped it, why had she lost control?—and together they would Confound the whole hospital if they had to.

'Your parents seem to believe differently, though,' the doctor said, wiping Ron off her thoughts. 'They said you appeared without their knowledge... true, you just said you wanted to surprise them, but they did not remember you being cheerful. They said you looked relieved at seeing them, but also very distressed and you kept talking about a war. Do you remember this?'

'No,' she said emphatically. 'My parents seem to be confused about many things. I do hope you're not taking their word as fact.'

'Indeed?' The doctor peered at her over his glasses. 'You have not been talking about a war?'

Hermione shook her head.

'How about a sword fight?'

Hermione frowned. 'A sword fight? No, why should I?'

'You kept talking about a sword when the paramedics found you,' Dr. Harmon explained. Hermione's stomach sank. 'Do you know who is Gringotts?'

'It's... um, it's a shop. Near my school.'

'And who is Ron? That's your boyfriend's name?' Hermione nodded. 'Where you fighting with him in your flashback? Was he hurting you, at Gringotts?'

'No!' she said, horrified at what they had made out of her screaming. 'He wasn't hurting me. He's not just my boyfriend, he's my best friend. I was calling out for him.'

'You were begging someone to stop hurting you, though.'

'Yes, but it wasn't Ron,' Hermione said firmly.

'Didn't you say you couldn't remember what your flashback was about?'

'I...' Had she? 'I'm only now beginning to remember. Besides, given that you seem to believe what you want, anyway, I was right in being reluctant to talk about it, wasn't I?'

Harmon ignored that last statement, taking more notes on his clipboard. Afterwards, he told her he would have to wait for her results until he could evaluate medication to help with her anxiety, and that those would be ready early the next day, so she'd have to spend the night there. Which Hermione both hated and preferred: at least here she wouldn't have to be alone with her parents. They would see that she wasn't on drugs, that she was reliable; they would prescribe her something, she would go home.

Her parents visited her again, but from the moment they stepped in, Hermione could tell something in their attitude had changed since that morning. They were still solicitous to her, yet she sensed an air of something passing between them. Was it guilt? It definitely felt as if they were not telling her something. She didn't have to think hard to know what it could be: they had been talking to the doctors, they were pretending that she'd been to some school called Hallford, and they had told her they thought she'd made up the whole thing about being a witch. If they had said so much as a word about it to the doctors, it would take a lot of well behaviour and convincing lying to make the doctors think she was sane. How could she convince an entire Muggle medical team that she was really a witch if she didn't have a wand, if she couldn't contact anyone from _her_ world to help her? It was horrifying to think about what could happen if they ended up believing she was mental.

Therefore, Hermione made an effort to be extra nice and compliant to her parents, but she got rid of them as soon as she could on the pretext that she was exhausted and needed to get some sleep. With them finally gone, she lay back against her pillows and covered her face with her hands, pressing fingers against her brow. She had never been good at turning off her brain, but she needed a good night's sleep. Things had gone so wrong... How had it happened? She wouldn't have imagined this situation in a million years: her parents denying seven years of her life, confronting her, making her lose control of her powers and landing her in a Muggle hospital, being checked for drugs... Hermione had understood, had felt outraged and frightened to the core as she witnessed Mary Cattermole trying to prove that she hadn't simply stolen a wand but that she was a witch herself; now, however, she was living it in the flesh. The only people here who knew what she was had turned on her and were suddenly denying her identity. Instead of proving them wrong, she'd just have to go along with it, whatever it took.

Hermione closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she blinked in befuddlement. The ceiling was no longer smooth, white and close, but impenetrable dark stone. Hermione sat up on the bed and stared at the raised platform in front of her, around which a silver shape was prowling. She shielded her eyes from the light, but she couldn't make out what was beyond it.

'Hem, hem,' Hermione heard from behind the Patronus. 'You are Hermione Jean Granger?' asked a high-pitched voice softly.

'Yes,' Hermione said, and she didn't remember why, but she had reason to be very frightened.

'Married to Ronald Weasley of The Burrow?'

'Yes,' Hermione answered again without a second thought, slightly amazed at the sound of the word "married".

'A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Hospital today,' that girlish, hated voice said. 'Could you tell us from which witch or wizard you took this wand?'

'I didn't steal it,' Hermione said, leaning forward. 'I bought it in Diagon Alley, when I was eleven.'

'But only wizards and witches have access to Diagon Alley,' the voice simpered. 'You. Are. Not. A. Witch.'

'Yes, I am!' Hermione exploded. 'I am a witch!'

'It says here that your parents are dentists. Are they not?'

'Yes, they are, they were with me when I got my wand!' Hermione looked hopefully to her right, where she found her parents. They were both shaking their heads at her.

'You're not a witch, Hermione,' her mum said.

'You've always thought you were one, but you're not. You've got to give back your wand.'

'What are you talking about, it's _my_ wand!' Hermione shouted, but the woman behind the light was laughing, and her singsong laughter was turning into a cruel cackle.

'Stop!' Hermione yelled. 'Stop it! I am a witch! Give me back my wand, I didn't steal it!'

'You stole it, you took it from me! What else did you take?' said the person behind the light, but it was a different, harsher voice, and it was no longer laughing. 'Tell the truth, Mudblood— _Crucio!_ '

'NOOO!'

With a jolt, Hermione sat upright in the bed, panting. She was drenched in sweat, her chest almost hurting as her heart pumped against it, and there were people around her in the brightly-lit hospital room.


	4. IV

**IV.**

'Would you call what happened last night a nightmare or a flashback?' Dr. Harmon said. It was eight in the morning of that Monday; Hermione guessed she was his first patient of the day, as he had different clothes under the white coat and looked fresh, unlike her, who still felt the stench of sweat coming off her skin and was sure she looked horrible as well.

'Nightmare,' Hermione said. 'I wasn't reliving anything that had happened before and there were some inconsistencies, the kind that happens in dreams.'

'Mhm, and the nurses said that you woke up on your own, too,' Harmon said, writing more notes on his clipboard. They had offered her some water and, seeing she was soaked in perspiration, proceeded to take her temperature and blood pressure again, while asking about other symptoms to see if she would need another sedative or could try and sleep a bit again on her own. She had assured them she was all right, but she had only fallen back asleep at about six. 'Do you often dream about being a witch?'

The question startled her. It hadn't been a flashback, but she had spoken out loud again, and someone had paid attention to what she'd said.

'No, not really,' she said calmly.

'Didn't you ever think, as a child, how great it would be to just hop on a broomstick and fly away, or wave a magic wand and make your problems disappear?' Harmon said. Hermione hard to resist the urge to roll her eyes. _As if_. But she knew where this was going, so instead she said, 'No, I was more of an Austen girl.'

'I see. Well, you should know it wouldn't be wrong of you if you did wish magic was real,' Harmon said, impassively. 'Sometimes fantasy is our only resource to escape a reality that we feel we cannot change, and while it's not exactly a bad thing, and in fact all of us do it to some extent, sometimes we can get lost in that fantasy.'

Hermione blinked back at him calmly, listening without a comment.

'That is when it becomes a problem, and it should be addressed and treated properly before it—'

'I'm sorry, doctor,' Hermione interrupted politely. 'I thought you were going to help me treat my anxiety. I don't see how what you're saying relates to that; I can assure you it was just a nightmare.'

Dr. Harmon took a deep breath and sighed, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose before crossing his legs.

'I'm afraid that everything is related here, Hermione. Your parents have confided in us that there are instances when you're convinced of being a witch who learns magic at a school called Hogwarts, and that you lived through a war. They are not sure when this started, but they say it was after you showed up in Australia that they noticed you were most insistent on it, and that it's also since then that you're experiencing these symptoms of anxiety and paranoia.'

Hermione felt her breath caught in her throat. So _that's_ what her parents had been talking to the doctors about.

'Dr. Dhaliwal said that you show signs of past malnutrition, and that you present several injuries like cuts and burns all over your body, which your parents insist had not been there before. They also said that, given all this, they couldn't assure the paramedics that you weren't on drugs or alcohol, and have warned us that you can get aggressive.'

'I—I didn't mean it,' Hermione stuttered. 'It was an accident, I...'

'They're not pressing charges,' Dr. Harmon assured her, holding up a hand. 'They didn't say anything about your mother's bruise, in fact; we just put two and two together. They only care about your wellbeing.'

'They care about my wellbeing because they are the ones who've suddenly decided I'm insane,' Hermione said before she could stop herself. 'My parents are the ones who seem to be trying to escape a reality that has become too uncomfortable for them.'

'If it was only your parents' word we had, then we would check on that,' Harmon said carefully. 'But we have the paramedics' report of your episode, and now the nurses' as well; we have Dr. Dhaliwal's physical exam that determines a possible eating and self-harming disorder, and I'm afraid there's something else.'

Dr. Harmon drew a folded paper from his clipboard and held it up for her.

'Your urine and blood tests came out clean of any substances... that we were able to identify. We are at a loss regarding what we found, which means we will have to wait until they're clear of your system before we can give you adequate medication.'

Hermione gasped. She had forgotten about the Contraceptive Potion she had taken a little over three weeks earlier and that would still be active on her body for a couple more days.

'You don't need to worry about it. It's nothing illegal,' she said, trying to sound as trustworthy as she could. 'I reckon it won't have any bad reactions against the anxiety medication.'

'That's not exactly what we'll be giving you medication for,' Harmon said, now looking at her with a slightly compassionate expression. 'The flashback and the symptoms you present are consistent with PTSD, yet you are unable to tell us anything that could explain the cause. So, in light of your parents' claims and what we know, and taking into account everything else, I am afraid to tell you that you're suffering of a delusional disorder bordering on psychosis. We're going to move you to the psychiatric ward so we can give you proper care. You are going to get better,' the man finished, almost encouragingly.

To Hermione, it sounded like a death sentence.

'What?' she said, her mouth feeling as if it was stuffed with cotton. 'I'm not... I'm not psychotic. Or delusional. This is a mistake. I'm _not_ a witch, I don't believe magic exists...'

'I know you say that _now_ , but part of you does believe it. You cannot go untreated, your symptoms would only get worse. At the moment, your parents are your temporary guardians, and they have given their full consent.'

'Doctor,' Hermione said, trying to sound calm in spite of how terrified she felt. She tucked her hands under her legs to stop them from trembling. 'Listen to me. I'm not insane. I haven't been hurting myself, I don't have an eating disorder. I'm not... I'm not aggressive. This is all a misunderstanding. I can't explain it to you, but you've got to believe me. I need to reach out to my boyfriend—Ron. He'll help me explain.'

'Okay, you can give me his number and we can get in touch with him,' Harmon said.

'He... he hasn't got a telephone number,' Hermione said, panic rising in her chest. There was no way for her to contact Ron, not without her wand or an owl. 'I mean, he has, but I don't remember his number. I've got to go home and fetch it...'

'We can't let you go, Hermione, I'm afraid; you need to start the treatment right away. You can tell your parents to look it up for you, though, can't you? They'll be happy to help.'

 _No, they won't._

'Please, you've got to let me go,' Hermione whimpered.

'You don't need to be afraid,' Harmon said gently, taking off his glasses and putting them on the pocket of his coat. 'We can help you; you'll get better in no time, you'll see.'

'But there's nothing wrong with me!' Hermione cried, swinging her feet off the bed and standing up. 'I'm not sick, and I'm not delusional! This is all my parents' fault! Where are they? Have they got rid of me already?'

'Now, don't get yourself worked up, Hermione, that's not advisable in your condition—'

' _My condition!_ ' Hermione said, a dry laugh escaping her. 'Do you mean to burn me for practising the dark arts or just give me electroshocks?'

Harmon looked concerned, and Hermione immediately regretted her unfortunate outburst.

'You're not a witch, Hermione, remember? Be calm now... Nurse!' he called from inside the room and, seconds later, the same woman who had tended to her the day before came hurrying in. The doctor gave her a meaningful look as he said, 'We're going to transfer her now. Please accompany the patient to her new room, where she'll be safer and undisturbed—'

'No!' Hermione exclaimed, jumping away from them and backing into the wall. 'You are going to let me go, I'm not going anywhere you take me, do you hear me?'

'It's all right,' the nurse said, both hands raised in a soothing manner. Her thick black hair hadn't been done up this morning, framing the woman's face messily. 'No one's going to hurt you. You'll be fine.'

But Hermione was not feeling fine. She was suddenly very aware of every noise in the hospital. Her own breathing felt noisy, rattling, as it passed in and out of her nose. _I can't breathe_ , she thought. _I can't breathe, and I can't think, and I'm going to die here._

Her vision darkened, the only thing she could still see was the nurse's face, and her hair...

'I'm going to hurt you,' the woman said.

'W—what?' Hermione whispered. 'Why?'

'You're not telling the truth, you filthy little Mudblood!'

'I am! I am a witch!' Hermione sputtered, pressing herself to the wall. 'We found the sword, but it's a fake! Please—please don't hurt me, not again—'

Bellatrix just smiled. Hermione heard a horrible crash coming from somewhere, and she cowered. But then she remembered: she _was_ a witch, and if Bellatrix finished her, she'd go for Ron next... She had to fight.

A hand closed around her arm, but she wrenched it away.

'You're not going to touch me again!' she screamed, her vision still blurry, darkness surrounding her. Her blood felt boiling just under her skin, her hair crackling with electricity against the back of her neck.

'Call him,' a male voice said, and looking up, she saw Lucius Malfoy's blond head coming closer.

'Not Voldemort! Don't call Voldemort!' Hermione cried out. She felt a stab of pain in her arm—they had given her to Greyback—she was going to die... Hermione tried to fight but, too soon, the world became darker and she was gone.

* * *

Hermione didn't know what day it was, or how many days had gone by since the first. They told her, but her medication made her forget; it made everything go away. Sometimes she woke up and she had to think for a couple of minutes to remember what her name was and why she was there.

They had performed tests daily, those first few days, waiting for the traces of unknown substances to finally disappear from her body in order to medicate her. During what they kept calling her "episode", they had injected her with a sedative to calm her down. Afterwards, they had kept her tied down. But she had fought them. No less than four times Hermione had inexplicably broken the bonds, once making it as far as the hallway outside. They had caught her and dragged her back, they always did, and after the last time, the administration of sedatives had been more frequent. Everyone had been impatient for her results to come back clean: nurses and doctors alike feared touching her, for her skin felt searing; she screamed when she was awake, pleading for them to release her, and she screamed when she slept, a senseless talk of goblins, curses, swords and blood. To add to the ominous air of her room, the lights didn't seemed to work properly at times, even after all the bulbs had been replaced: they kept going on and off, the crystal shattering in the end, leading everyone to think that there was something wrong in the wiring.

Every day the doctors told Hermione that her parents were there, but she had only let them in once. Tearfully, she had begged for them to let her go, to tell the doctors this had all been a mistake. She had asked them why were they doing this, why had they decided that she was mental, how come they couldn't remember her letter, McGonagall, Diagon Alley, the goblins at Gringotts, everything she had ever told and showed them of the wizarding world. She asked for her wand, and news from Ron. Had he come looking for her at all, or had her silence pushed him away for good? But no, her parents could not let her go, they were doing the best for her, _and how come she's still talking about magic, we thought you were helping her!_ And no, that boy Ron hadn't set foot at their house, but still, they thought it was for the best because _honestly, sweetheart, we think he's a bad influence in your condition_.

She had wanted to claw their eyes out, and she almost had. Hermione had refused to see them at all afterwards.

Once her contraceptive potion had ceased to have any effects, the worst part started. Hermione refused to swallow the pills. She wouldn't open her mouth, and any attempts to force them down her throat resulted in her choking and having a panic attack, so they had resorted to an IV drip.

The time between one dose and the next left Hermione spent. The fight of the first weeks had left her; the hope of her parents coming to their senses or at least taking pity on her, of the doctors realizing they had made a mistake, of Ron finding her, all of that had abandoned her. She could no longer see a way out. She didn't know what was she supposed to do for them to believe she had finally got better: Hermione couldn't control what she said in her dreams or in the haze of drugs, and they didn't believe her when she was conscious. She supposed that the only way out would be for her to cave in, to acknowledge that she had never been a witch, to let them clean her soul of all her memories and leave her an empty, clean shell.

It was already happening. Sometimes Hermione tried hard to bring back certain memories, the good ones, but she couldn't. She couldn't remember exactly where had her first kiss with Ron been. She didn't remember how come she knew Harry was alive when she'd seen him lying dead in Hagrid's arms. She had no idea how had she escaped from Bellatrix. Thinking of it, trying to remember made her head hurt, and she would start crying, trying to empty her mind and not think of anything at all until it became an habit. She didn't know her past anymore. She was unsure of everything. She didn't know where she'd been, what she'd done, whom she'd loved and who she was, and she didn't care.

She was no one.

Hermione's head turned heavily to the side, watching her arm, translucent under the artificial light, outstretched over the sheets; the needle taped to her skin, the thin tube steadily delivering her doom. If she ever got out, she'd be no one, no matter what happened. She didn't want to be no one. What was the point? There had to be another way out. She imagined the flow of medicine pouring faster into her body, never stopping, until all of her was filled with it, and then she would be able to go and be whoever she was meant to be, only somewhere else. It was hard to keep her eyelids open; she blinked, and she could no longer open them again as she felt the rush of liquid shooting up her vein.

And after weeks of hearing it, Hermione finally knew that everything was going to be all right.


	5. V

**V.**

Ron fell onto the armchair and ran his hands through his hair, nails scratching his scalp so forcefully that they left it stinging.

'I'm seriously considering hurting them, Harry. I _will_ hurt them if they don't tell me where... if I can't find where she...'

Harry looked at him worriedly. He had no doubt that Ron would, unless he got news soon.

'We'll find her, mate,' he assured Ron for the thousandth time.

Ron knew that Harry was as distressed as he was, that he spent every waking hour trying to figure out a way to help him, that he missed Hermione, too, and needed to know where and how she was. He appreciated that, but it wasn't the same. He, Ron, felt as if a piece of him had been ripped off, like a lung, or an arm, and now he was a broken thing left to fend for himself. No, it was even worse than that, because the thing that had been ripped from him was locked away somewhere, probably alone, scared, hurt, and he fucking hated that more than he hated being broken in half.

Her parents' voice resounded in his head whenever he closed his eyes, and he would press his head against the pillow, trying to replace it with Hermione's voice, the last he'd heard of it nearly two weeks ago.

When Pig had returned without a reply, Ron did the math and realized that his letter might have come at the wrong time, causing Hermione more trouble with her parents and making her mad at him. He didn't want to send Pig again, but what if Hermione actually wanted to contact him without leaving her house? He'd never known how she managed without her own owl, and made a mental note to buy her one for her birthday. They could bring Crookshanks along, in case an Animagus Death Eater had sought shelter at Eeylops Owl Emporium.

Ginny had told him he could send Hermes instead, without a letter: Percy's owl was smarter, and if the coast was clear he could fly straight to Hermione's bedroom and offer to carry a word for Ron. Hermes had come back just like Pig.

On Saturday, Ron had decided he'd had enough. If she didn't show up at The Burrow the next day, he would go to her house and her parents be damned. She couldn't possibly still be angry at him just for Pig—Ginny agreed—and if she was, Ron wanted to apologize. But he had a strong suspicion that her parents were the main reason for Hermione's silence. Only he really knew how upset she had been about them, first thinking they wouldn't find them and worrying that she wouldn't be able to lift the spell in any case; then, once they had found them, thinking that they would never forgive her. Ron hadn't been able to convince her otherwise. Her reclusion was her own punishment.

Still, it had gone on long enough. Her parents would have to hear him.

When Ron Apparated there that Sunday, barely half an hour before lunch would be served at The Burrow, no one answered the door. He rang the bell several times and was about to go, thinking they must have taken a trip somewhere, when he noticed the car parked in the semi-covered garage.

He knew he couldn't Apparate inside, so he went to the backyard instead and unlocked the door to the kitchen. There was nobody there, and he felt overcome by a sense of foreboding. Walking further into the room, he noticed that the table was askew and the chairs were haphazardly pushed against it. There were no sounds in the house.

'Hermione?' he called, done with being cautious. He checked every room downstairs, always calling her name loudly, and then took the staircase two steps at a time. No one there, either, but when he got to her bedroom, the bad feeling only intensified and all kind of scenarios ran through his mind.

The door looked as it'd been forced open, whether by magic or strength he couldn't tell; the bedspread was bunched up at the foot of the bed, as if someone had grabbed hold of it and pulled, and there was a white plastic cup lying crumpled on the floor. He got down on hands and knees, looking for anything: hair, blood, Hermione herself.

What he found was nearly as bad as a stain of blood. Her wand was under her bed. Wherever Hermione was, whatever she was doing (or was having done to her), she was defenceless.

He had Apparated straight back to The Burrow, dragging Harry aside to tell him: they had to do something, soon, but they didn't know what. Ron stood posted outside Hermione's house all that day, but it had been fruitless; the same could be said about the next two days. If the Grangers had come and gone, they had done so while he had been dragged away by Ginny to take a rest and eat.

On the third day, he'd finally found Hermione's parents home.

'Where Hermione is, is none of your concern,' her mother had told him coldly.

'What do you mean, "none of my concern"? She's my girlfriend, and she's my best friend before that,' he'd replied angrily, trying to catch a glimpse of Hermione over their heads.

'Hermione's not here,' her father had said, blocking the door. 'Please leave my family alone or I will call the police.'

He had shouted at them then, which only caused them to slam the door in his nose.

Both Ron and Harry had asked for help at the Ministry, but there was nothing to do, no way to track her down. To make things worse, wherever she was seemed to be Muggle, since her parents knew about it—and were responsible for it, Ron was sure of that—which meant that the places to check were endless, and that they would have to be really careful to remove Hermione from there.

There was another possibility, though, one that Ron refused to believe: that Hermione had gone on her own accord, and she'd left her wand to embrace the Muggle world, denying everything she was.

He had gone to Hermione's house and confronted her parents on three more occasions that first week, growing more desperate each time: they wouldn't tell him a thing about her whereabouts, but they kept saying that she was doing fine, "getting better" ('From _what?_ ' Ron asked, to no response) and doing well without him.

'I mean it,' Harry said now, getting to his feet and walking up to Ron. 'There's something we can do. We're going to use Veritaserum on them.'

Ron looked up: Harry didn't sound like he was joking, or making a vain offer.

'Are you serious? Can we get some? They don't sell that kind of stuff in Diagon Alley...'

'I know,' Harry said. 'I've been thinking about it and even asked around at the Ministry before telling you. They haven't got any; none of the previous Ministers considered it reliable or cared to give the suspects' a chance. There's nothing left at Hogwarts, either. We'll have to brew it.'

'Harry, are you kidding me? We could never do it right, neither of us is that good at potions!' Ron said angrily, his hope deflating. 'The only one who could do it without making a big fucking mess is—is Hermione.'

He couldn't help his voice cracking at the mention of her name.

'I know,' Harry said quietly. 'I didn't mean that _we_ would brew it. I've asked Slughorn and he's agreed to help us.'

Ron felt a surge of gratitude towards their old Potions master.

'The only problem is that it'll take some time to be finished... a month.'

Ron sighed heavily, staring at his feet.

'It's the best we've got, isn't it?' Harry said.

 _It's the only thing we've got_ , Ron thought, and he nodded.

* * *

It was hard not to break into a run as Ron walked through the hospital, but he had to follow Harry's lead if he didn't want to ruin things from the start. That very morning, Slughorn had sent a vial of freshly brewed Veritaserum: Harry and he had wasted no time Apparating to the Grangers', their precious, hard-procured potion safely tucked into the pocket of Ron's jacket. Harry had wanted to go alone, but Ron would have none of it. 'I want to look at them in the eye when they explain what the fuck is wrong with them,' he'd told Harry.

After some persuasion for the Grangers to let them into the house, and sneaking the potion into the contents of two cups of tea that Harry insisted they must have, Hermione's parents had given them the information they were looking for—Hermione was at St. Kingsmark Hospital—but the reason why was darker and more inconceivable than Ron could have imagined.

'Hermione wasn't herself,' her father had told them. 'She was talking of magic and witches and wizards. That's not her, that's not our brilliant daughter.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Ron had snarled. 'She talks about magic because she _is_ a witch, much as you'd like for her to act otherwise!'

'She's not a witch,' her mother had said, looking at him with a frown.

'What the bloody hell are you talking about, you big—' Ron had started, but Harry had taken a strong hold of his arm to stop him.

'Mrs. Granger,' he'd said calmly. 'Do you remember anything from Hermione's school years? What school did she attend?'

'Hallford School for gifted children. She was brilliant, she was made a Prefect.'

Ron's arm was twisting under Harry's grip, but Harry didn't let go.

'Have you ever been there?'

'No, we haven't.'

'Why?'

'I don't know why,' Hermione's mother said.

'You've never seen anything remotely magical? You've never been to a place called Diagon Alley?'

'No.'

'You remember seeing Ron's family?'

'No, not really,' Mr. Granger said.

Ron scowled at them while Harry kept asking questions like that for nearly an hour, but all of the answers led to one conclusion: that the Grangers really didn't believe that Hermione was a witch.

'Is this the right potion? Is it possible that it's got no effect on Muggles? Or that they're resisting it somehow?' Ron had asked Harry, taking him aside.

'No, Slughorn knew what we were going to use it for—it does work on Muggles,' Harry said, running a hand over his scar in an absent-minded manner. 'This is what they really think is the truth, so it's got to mean something else.'

'Do you think someone's behind this? Someone's got them under the Imperius Curse?'

'It's possible. We're going to have to check on that.'

Ron agreed, but he had other priorities. They had sat down back at the table, and he'd asked them everything that had happened since that Sunday.

By the end of their story, aided with Harry's explanations of the Muggle world, Ron half wished they hadn't told him.

He reached the reception desk with his heart hammering inside his chest.

'I'm looking for Hermione Granger,' he asked, trying to steady his voice. 'She was brought in the 7th of June, she's in a psychiatric ward.'

'And you are?' the receptionist asked, looking at him with clear mistrust.

'Ron Weasley. I'm her boyfriend, I'm here to see her.'

The woman pressed some buttons on the desk and looked at the beige-coloured box that Hermione had told him was called a "computer" before addressing him again.

'Her parents were appointed as her legal guardians and they haven't authorized any visitors. Sorry.'

Ron felt his blood boiling. He remembered Harry's words ('Don't Confound any doctors, Ron, Hermione would never forgive you if they kill someone on surgery because of you'), but the receptionist wasn't a doctor. He gripped his wand through the hole of the pocket he'd removed from his very loose coat and pointed it at the woman, casting the non-verbal spell.

'You've just spoken to them, they told you I'm an exception,' Ron said.

The woman frowned slightly but said, 'Oh, really... that's right. Room 39, third floor.'

'Thank you,' Ron said as the woman put a pen in a nearby flower vase, and he sprinted towards the stairs. He didn't have much time till the effects of his Confundus spell wore out, and so he couldn't risk getting stuck in a slow lift in case he needed the receptionist's help again.

He did need it. A very young doctor stopped him while he frantically looked for Hermione's room, asking what was he doing there and telling him that she needed to check that he had indeed been given permission. Ron waited with baited breath as she did so, wondering whether her 'Uh-huh's were a good or bad thing, until she hung up the telephone and pointed him in the right direction. He could have kissed her.

Ron paused outside the glass-panelled room, staring at the bed inside. He felt a Quaffle-sized knot forming in his throat at the sight of her.

'Why is she—Why is she unconscious?' he asked to the doctor, who had followed him and was standing right behind him.

'Well...' the woman said, looking uncomfortable. 'We're still trying to figure out how it happened, exactly. We don't think it's a bad reaction, since she's been on the same drugs for weeks and nothing like this had ever happened before. It definitely seemed like an overdose, which we still don't understand because she hasn't been treated by other nurses or doctors—'

'An overdose?' Ron said, the blood draining from his face. 'Is she—how is she?'

'We've done a gastric lavage and she should be all right soon.'

 _Gastric lavage_. It sounded as if they had opened her up and scrubbed her stomach clean.

Ron felt rigid, unable to tear his gaze from the still figure on the bed, frighteningly pale and emaciated, her old scars and some bruises he was sure were new standing out sharply, tubes coming from her skin and mouth.

'You did this,' he said.

'The hospital is taking full responsibility on what happened,' the doctor said at once, 'and we're still trying to figure out the cause—'

'No, you did _all_ of this. She shouldn't be here in the first place, she shouldn't be taking any medication as if she was—'

Ron was beginning to tremble, his wand shaking under the coat. He knew he couldn't lose it, though: too much was at stake. He put his wand in a pocket of his jeans and rounded on the doctor instead. Mustering all the authority he could, he said, 'I'm going to go in there.'

The doctor looked as if she was going to say something, but she glanced at the room and nodded.

Of all the times he'd seen Hermione in a bad state, this was the worst. He remembered the other times when he'd been afraid that Hermione wouldn't wake up: in second year, petrified by the basilisk, feeling grateful that she'd thought of using a mirror but at the same time fearing she'd stay a statue forever. In fifth year, when he woke up disoriented to find Madam Pomfrey trying to counteract a curse he didn't remember her taking. What he thought had been the worst, waiting for her to wake up as she lay on a bed at Shell Cottage, felt like nothing compared to this. He knew how bad the curse was; he had been scared both for her physical and mental health. What if she did wake up, but she had to spend the rest of her days in a ward at St. Mungo's? But somehow, it had looked less sinister than this scene. He couldn't shake out of his head images of Hermione screaming and begging the Muggle doctors to let her go, unable to reach him, unable to do magic, taking drugs she didn't need, being stabbed with needles. Ron knew he hadn't had any other choice, but it didn't prevent him from feeling like this was his fault. He had let her here to rot for over a _month_.

Ron walked to the bed and pressed a hand under her collarbone, needing to feel the rise and fall of her chest, her heart beating somewhere under the skin. He let out a long breath and sank to his knees, ignoring the chair set nearby.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered, grabbing her hand with extreme care and wincing at the sight of the needle taped to her wrist. 'I'm going to take you out of here soon, I promise.'

Hermione's fingers twitched under his grasp and Ron looked up at once, his heart giving a great leap. He thought he saw her eyelids fluttering; cautiously, he looked over his shoulder. The doctor had stayed in the hallway outside and wasn't looking in their direction.

'Hermione?' he said quietly, bowing his head closer. After what felt like an eternity, her eyes opened: Ron squeezed her hand and his face broke in a smile like it hadn't done in weeks. He positioned himself so she wouldn't have to move her head at all in order to see him and said, 'Hey.'

Hermione didn't answer, which he had expected to happen given the mask covering her mouth. There was something wrong, though. Ron waited, giving her enough time to recover, to take in her surroundings and _him_ , standing right in front of her nose. Hermione didn't seem to see him at all. She continued to stare ahead, as if he was invisible, a ghost she could look through. There was no acknowledging eye contact, no relieved smile, no squeezing back his hand, not even sobbing. It was as if Ron was not there.

'Hermione,' he repeated, louder this time, his face coming so close to hers that the tip of their noses touched, trying to force her to look him in the eye. It was useless.

Suddenly, her eyes seemed to focus and grow large as if in terror, her body twitching and twisting on the bed.

'Hermione, it's me,' Ron said, but Hermione didn't seem to be reacting to him, still looking at something beyond either of them. She started whimpering, the sounds muffled by the mask. Ron wanted to take it off, but he wasn't sure what it was supposed to be there for. Couldn't she breathe on her own?

'No,' he heard her say, and then, louder, until it became a scream, 'No! No! NO! Stop it!'

She seemed to be cowering in the bed, her eyes closing and her face contorting in a pained wince, all the time alternatively mumbling and crying out.

Ron jumped away from the bed, horrified. At first, he could have deluded himself thinking that she simply didn't care for him anymore, that she'd waited for him to come and, when he hadn't, she'd simply given up, and now she didn't want him there. Now, he knew differently.

Hermione didn't recognize him, or herself, or anything around her. The Muggle world had achieved what Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't: to drive her into insanity.


	6. VI

**VI.**

An air of mourning hung over the kitchen at The Burrow, where Ron, Harry, Ginny and Luna sat. Ron had returned from the hospital just when Harry came back from Hermione's house, where he had conducted an investigation with help from some of their fellow Aurors, looking for traces of magic that would tell if there was someone behind the Grangers' confusion. They'd had no luck so far, but he wouldn't give up: it wasn't possible that the Grangers' had gone mental on their own accord. They had found Ginny and Luna together, and Harry proceeded to fill them in on their morning discoveries. Then, it was Ron's turn to speak.

He recounted his visit to the hospital thickly, pausing for Harry to explain the little he knew about gastric lavage (also called "stomach pumping", which only made it more confusing), and he almost broke down again, recalling the vacant look on Hermione's face and her screaming...

'I didn't know what to do,' he said. 'I mean, I wanted to grab her and take her away from there, but that mask... it's supposed to help her breathe, isn't it? And she's got all that other Muggle stuff in her, I didn't want to make it worse. I wanted to burn down the place, too, and throttle her parents, but then how would I help her if I end up in Azkaban?'

Ron buried his head in his arms.

'I don't fucking know what to do. I can't leave her there. I _can't_. But she doesn't... If I get her out of there, then what? Change that place for St. Mungo's?'

'They wouldn't know what to do about the memory loss at St. Mungo's, since it wasn't caused by anything magical,' Ginny said, speaking for the first time since Harry and Ron had started their story. She was unusually pale, holding Harry's hand tightly over the table, like an anchor. 'They wouldn't help... but they'd probably put her in a closed ward all the same.'

She sighed irritably.

'This is horrible! Horrible! It sounds like a modern Muggle way of witch torture!'

Ron flinched at the last word.

'I think the first thing we need to do is get Hermione out of there safely,' Harry said. 'We can't ask Kingsley to just talk with the Muggle Prime Minister and get him to release her, it would involve too many people and explanations, and Hermione would end up in St. Mungo's indefinitely if they can't fix her—'

'Don't say "fix her" like she's fucking broken,' Ron snapped.

'I didn't mean it like that,' Harry said quietly. 'Sorry. Anyway, we're going to do it ourselves, and we need to plan it really carefully. I was thinking Polyjuice Potion. That way two of us can pass for her parents, say we want to take care of her at home because we think the hospital is only making it worse... Something like that.'

'Harry, no offense but _have_ you got any Polyjuice Potion lying about, by chance?' Ron said impatiently, looking up. 'Because that's another bloody thing they don't sell on the street, and I'm not about to leave Hermione there for another month while we sit with our thumbs up our arses!'

'Have you got a better plan, then?' Harry said, flaring up. 'Because I don't fancy the idea very much, myself, but I don't see you coming up with anything better than blasting your way in and out of a place full of Muggles with a girl who—'

'Harry, stop,' Ginny warned him, gripping his arm as Harry and Ron glared at each other from across the table. 'You too, Ron. We all want to help Hermione. Let's try and think of alternative plans, but we won't ditch the Polyjuice idea yet. All right?'

Both Ron and Harry grunted in assent.

'And then what?' Ron said. 'What do we do with her, how do we... How do we get _Hermione_ back?'

'We'll go and talk with Madam Pomfrey, and with someone from St. Mungo's as well, she might point us to someone we can trust,' Ginny answered. 'Maybe you should be there, Harry, to explain the Muggle bits?'

'Yeah. And I'll ask Slughorn if he's got some Polyjuice Potion already made. I could ask around at the Ministry as well,' Harry said.

'Is that okay, Ron?' Ginny asked.

'Great,' Ron said, and shot her a half smile. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. 'I'll be outside, I need some fresh air.'

Ron left the kitchen without looking back at the others. He paused right outside the door, taking in the warm early afternoon sun. Things weren't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be taking Hermione out on a date, not scheming a far-fetched plan to rescue her from a hospital. Hermione was supposed to be using her brilliant brain for the betterment of the wizarding world, not stuck on a bed, unknowing of everything—

He blinked hard, wiped his cheeks and started walking through the yard to nowhere in particular.

'Ron!' he heard as he passed the pond. Luna hadn't said a word back in the kitchen, though her slightly large eyes, normally sporting a faraway look, had been serious and focused the entire time. She was trotting now towards Ron, and he waited for her to catch up.

'I'm fine, Luna,' he said, thinking the other two had sent her after him in case he did something rash.

'Oh I know. Do you mind some company, though?'

'Sure, yeah.'

'I don't think Madam Pomfrey will be able to help Hermione,' Luna said without preamble as soon as they started walking. 'Nor anyone in St. Mungo's.'

'Thanks Luna, that's really encouraging,' Ron grunted.

'But you can,' she continued, ignoring him.

'How? I know nothing about healing, Muggle or magical. I've never even fixed a broken toe, and you want me to fix—'

He cut himself off. He'd done exactly what he'd snapped at Harry for.

'It doesn't matter. I have been thinking... I don't know how that Muggle medicine works, but it doesn't seem like Hermione's lost her memory. You see, Neville told me about his parents. They were tortured—'

'By Bellatrix Lestrange, yeah, and now they can't recognize their own son,' Ron interrupted.

'That's right,' Luna said, apparently oblivious to the fact that Ron wasn't finding her comforting at all. 'They don't remember _anything_ , not when they're awake, not in their dreams. They've lost the ability to say anything coherent, they haven't got any reason left—'

'Luna, get to the point!'

'I believe I just made it,' she said calmly. 'I don't believe that's what happened to Hermione. Her memories are there, not far from the surface. The medicine manages to sink them to a place she can't recognize as a real memory, and so it's all turned into a dream she's trapped it. At least it's what I think. Didn't her parents say she's got those things they call "psychotic episodes", that you and Harry reckon are actually flashbacks to what happened at the Malfoys'?'

'Yeah. They said she screamed and begged them not to hurt her anymore,' Ron said, his throat contracting at the thought. _And that was my fault, too, they should have never even touched her._ 'I think she was going through something similar when I visited her.'

'Well, it's because she thinks she's back there, she thinks she's reliving everything all over again and she can't fight back.'

'I still don't see how I can help her.'

'You need to conjure her ghosts and help her fight them,' Luna said, with the composure of someone suggesting he took a broomstick ride.

'Beg your pardon?'

'If everything she's afraid of is out there and she can really fight it, then she wouldn't need to fight them inside her head and lose the battle every time,' Luna explained, which still didn't feel like an explanation at all. 'If it's out of her head, if she can take her fight and make it real, and win it, then I think... I think she'll be back.'

Ron stared at her.

'You're bonkers,' he said, 'but let's pretend that you're right: how do I do it? Conjure her ghosts and... whatever else?'

Luna gave him an enigmatic smile.

'You're going to do it, then? If I tell you? I can only guide you so far, though, the rest is up to you.'

Of course he would do it. If Luna assured him that dancing wearing nothing but a necklace made of Butterbeer caps would help Hermione, he'd do it. Ron would do anything for her. That had never been a question.

'Yes,' he said, and he followed Luna up the path to the orchard.

Ron didn't say anything to Harry and Ginny, letting them carry on with their plan. First, because they'd say what he would in any other case: that he had lost his marbles for good. Not to mention that they would try to stop him, telling him that Luna's ridiculous plan wouldn't work but that he might end up making things worse. He couldn't have any of that; he had to try.

He had taken Harry's Invisibility Cloak from his trunk in Percy's room, where he was staying, while the rest of his family finished dinner. No one had questioned him for leaving the table. The smooth fabric gleamed slightly under the moonlight coming through his window now, as Ron stood in the middle of his bedroom.

He took a moment to remember the visions he'd seen that afternoon in Luna's water-filled basin, surrounded by the queer aromatic fumes she had lit. They had Apparated to her house and went up to Luna's room, which she had proceeded to darken, covering the windows with heavy, dusty curtains and placing a spell to isolate them from any noises coming from below. Ron had a moment's hesitation, fearing that Luna _was_ really off her rocker, a feeling that didn't completely go away when she explained what they were about to do. She had finally lost her patience and told him to shut up, which amazed Ron so much that he did as he was told.

'Dad showed me how to do it, he did it for me after my mum died so I could make my peace with it,' Luna had said conversationally, lighting a tall white candle. 'But it doesn't only summon ghosts, it works for visions and memories, too.'

Ron stared at the small silver knife laid on his bed with distaste. 'You might have to hurt her and she might hurt you. Be careful, and be prepared,' Luna had warned him

'Luna, where the hell did you learn all this?' he had asked, raising his eyebrows and looking at her in wonder. As loopy as he'd always believed she was, Ron had never imagined Luna would know so much about ghost summoning and obscure methods of mind-healing.

'Does it matter?' she'd replied, but seeing that Ron was still looking questioningly at her, she sighed softly and said, 'One of my aunts is a Druid. She's taught me many things. This isn't one of them, not exactly, but...' And she gave a little shrug.

He finally put everything he was going to need in his old rucksack and lay on the bed, waiting for the telltale noises from downstairs signalling bedtime. Fifteen slow minutes later, the last door closed and the house was silent.

Ron got up, trembling slightly and telling himself off for it. He had to be steady and confident in what he proposed to do, if he wanted it to work. There'll be no more shaking and no more hesitation: he would do what he had to.

He threw the Cloak over himself and Disapparated.

* * *

He Apparated straight to Hermione's hospital room, under the Cloak's protection. Outside, the place wasn't bustling with activity but there were still people moving to and fro. Inside, there was only her, like an abandoned broken doll. Ron wanted to go to her, but he had other things to do first.

Ron performed the enchantments he had been so familiar with for almost a year, saying the words under his breath, ' _Repello Muggletum. Muffliato. Protego Totalum. Cave Inimicum._ '

Casting at last the spell Luna had used that afternoon to mute external sounds, Ron took the big bulk of rolled up curtains next, flicked his wand at them and hung them to cover every door, window and glass panel.

The place isolated and secure, Ron took the remaining items from his rucksack, laid them on the visitor's chair and finally walked up to the bed. They had taken off the mask, which was a relief to Ron, but she still had a needle coming out of her wrist. He stooped, pulled off the tape holding it in place, and carefully slid the needle out. Hermione moaned slightly in pain but didn't rouse; Ron touched the sticky marks of the tape on her skin and kissed the spot where the needle had been.

He stood up again and stared at Hermione. She looked as she always did when she was sleeping. He pushed the hair from her face, wild and stiff with poor washing, and bent to kiss her on the lips, wishing she would just wake up and be herself again like in that "movie" thing he watched with her in Australia, but Hermione didn't even move. Ron already knew she wouldn't. Things had never been as easy as that with her. Hermione was not a princess: she was a warrior. She needed to fight her own battles.

Ron sighed and took the two bell-shaped burners that Luna had given him, each filled with different herbs; placing them on opposite corners of the room, he lit them and enchanted them so they wouldn't be knocked over by accident. He turned off the dim artificial light at last, filled two glass jars with Hermione's trademark bluebell flames and set each on the remaining corners, leaving the room submerged in a bluish gloom. He finally cast a warming spell on the tiled floor before kicking off his shoes and socks. As the fumes from the burners filled the room, Ron knew his preparations were complete.

He went up to Hermione again and wrapped her hand around her wand. Ron had picked it up that first day at the Grangers' when he found it on the floor, and would take it out every night, waiting for it to show him the whereabouts of its owner. There they were at last, wand and witch reunited. He uncorked a small vial, grabbed his wand and the silver knife on his other hand, and took a long, steadying breath.

 _I offered my life for yours once and I meant it. This time I won't try to save you. I'll help you save yourself._

Ron tilted the vial into Hermione's mouth: it was a simple Invigoration Draught, meant to rouse her and give her strength, though it would do nothing for her state of mind.

Hermione coughed a little as she choked down the potion. She moved her head from side to side on the pillow and moaned again, her eyes squinting in the semi darkness as if she was only waking up from a nap. Ron put the vial on a pocket of his robes and bent over her, holding his wand on his right hand, knife on the left.

'Wake up, Mudblood,' he said hoarsely. 'We're not finished here.'

Hermione closed her eyes again, wincing, and turned her head away.

'No? Do you not want me to give you to Greyback? He will be pleased, he likes his prey young. He won't really mind the stink of your blood. I hear he always plays with his food first...'

He pressed his hand hard against Hermione's breast and squeezed it, sniffing loudly at her collarbone. She flinched and turned to one side, trying to crawl out of the bed, but Ron grabbed her by a shoulder and pushed her against the mattress again.

'You stole the sword from my vault! What else did you take? What else have you stolen from me? Tell the truth!'

'Nothing,' Hermione whimpered, her arms hugging her body in futile protection. 'We found it, we didn't take anything, please...'

'You are lying, you filthy Mudblood! What else did you take? Answer me!'

'No... please... we haven't... not again...'

'Fight me, then!' Ron growled, the part of him that would have been disgusted with himself and breaking right along with Hermione buried deep down. 'Fight me or I shall run you through with this knife and we'll see exactly how filthy your blood is!'

Hermione kept shaking her head feebly, her arms tightly wrapped around her, trying to escape Ron's hold.

'Then I shall kill you,' Ron whispered, pressing the knife against the tender skin of her throat, on the spot he knew so well, 'and then, I'll kill _them_.'

'NO!'

Before he knew what had happened, Ron was blasted backwards and landed on the floor a few feet away. He looked up in time to see Hermione jumping off her bed, staring at him without really seeing _him_ in the smoked, dimly illuminated room.

'You won't... touch... him,' she panted with some effort. 'You won't... hurt me.'

Ron saw the wand slashing the air, but he was prepared this time: raising his own, he shouted, ' _Protego!_ ' and Hermione's spell rebounded and hit one of the Muggle artefacts next to the bed, making it buzz and sparkle.

'You can do better than that, can't you?' Ron snarled. 'Of course you can't, you're only a Mudblood—'

Another spell came in his direction, missing him only by inches; it was a good thing that visibility was rather poor, as Hermione's reflexes seemed intact.

'I'm going to kill you,' he said, taunting. 'Come fight me, Mudblood, or I shall kill you—'

With a yell, Hermione launched herself blindly at him; Ron felt her nails scratching at his face, her wand accidentally poking him in the eye, and Hermione's warm breath on his skin.

'That's all you can do?' Ron panted, throwing the knife away to avoid hurting her while trying to keep her from taking his eyes out. 'Use your magic! Fight me! I'll kill you if you let me—'

Hermione leaped back and made a flourish with her wand; Ron felt as if a great fist had knocked him on the face and, next thing he knew, an invisible force was throttling him.

' _Impedimenta!_ ' he thought, aiming his wand at her. The spell made her stagger against the bed and lose enough control of her wand for Ron to move out of her way, coughing and inhaling the dizzying fumes in the process.

' _Expelliarmus!_ ' she shrieked, and Ron's wand flew out of his weak grip to land with a clatter away from him. Before he could react, Hermione had charged towards him and was holding her wand against his throat, a mad, frightening look in her eyes, her hair tickling his face as if it wanted to attack him too.

'Do not... call me... that,' she growled, her wand giving off sparks that scorched the neck of Ron's robes, 'and let him... go.'

Ron heard a second clatter as Hermione dropped her own wand and saw her hands flying to grab at his throat again; with one quick movement, he seized both of her arms, turned her around and pinned her against the wall.

'It's me,' he said clearly. 'Hermione, it's me. Ron. Look at me.'

Her eyes grew large and round, focusing on him, the real him, for the first time.

'R—Ron?' she asked feebly, still struggling.

'Yes. Hermione, she's gone. Let her go. She's gone. You've done it,' Ron said in a soothing tone, holding her arms firmly over her head.

Hermione looked confused at first, like a small child who had lost her parents in a crowd; then her face crumpled and she started to sob, her body slackening at last.

'No, it c—can't be,' she hiccupped. 'It's not r—real... you're n—not... real... I'm d—dreaming and c—can't get _out!_ '

'You're out,' Ron said, feeling the despair building up inside him, 'you're out, you're real and I'm... you can feel me...'

He guided Hermione's hands to his face and let her touch him, groping about his eyes, his nose, his jaw as she kept sobbing. Her hands roamed through his hair, painfully clutching fistfuls of it and pulling him down to her. Their teeth bumped as their lips met, Hermione holding his head so close to her, almost possessively, that Ron could barely move, kissing her back with the same messy forcefulness.

Ron knew what the last step was to complete the ritual and fully bring her back, but knowing didn't make it any easier. Just like Luna had told him, she could only guide him so far. As he was the one who knew Hermione best, he would have to make up the rest of the way himself. Sitting on the floor of the darkened room at Luna's house, trembling from the visions he had just witnessed and with Luna's directions on his mind, he'd had his revelation, lighting up the final stretch of the path. This time it was not a ghost who had spoken to him, but a memory, recent and at the same time as old as a lifetime.

'It feels like dying a little bit, doesn't it?' Hermione had said quietly, her body fitting perfectly with him. 'Only in a good way. It feels scary for a split second, to let go, but after you do, you feel like... like you were born again. Don't you think?'

He had looked at her expectant face then, too drowsy and content to really take in what she was saying, and said that yes, he felt the same, because he did even if he couldn't have put it into words. Now, though, he knew how right she was. She had given him the key to her own salvation, which was also her undoing.

She kept kissing him, accidentally biting his tongue and lips. Ron broke apart to kiss her neck and her collarbone while her hands clung to him. Part of him didn't feel like it was right; it felt too sick, too disgusted with what he'd had to do already. The other part, though, was too addled by the smoking herbs to question anything and just wanted it to be over.

 _She's conscious and she wants you, those were your two conditions._

Ron grabbed her arms and pulled them gently away from him so he could tug his robes over his head. With his hands shaking, he undid the fastening of her loose hospital gown and helped her take it off. Hermione's breathing was laboured as Ron placed both hands on her waist, his thumbs spreading and caressing her stomach before moving upwards. He cupped her breasts softly, as if to undo the rough treatment he'd paid them before, and trailed kisses from one side to the other of her heaving chest, dimly aware of Hermione's arms draping around his neck, concentrated as he was on the sounds she kept making.

He swooped down again to kiss her stomach and the waistband of her underwear; he pulled it down then, grabbed the back of her knees and pushed her up against the wall, her legs wrapping around him tightly and her middle pressed against his own, soaking the fabric of his pants. He reached a hand inside them and guided himself into her, both moaning in sync when he entered her.

He moved slowly at first, using the time to further arouse every weak spot in her body, nibbling at her ear lobes, the base of her neck, her nipples; running his hands lightly over her sides and her backside; catching her mouth mid-sigh and kissing her hard again. When he felt her breathing quicken, he started thrusting faster, allowing his climax to build up in time with hers. It wasn't long until he thought he couldn't take another second: bracing one arm to take her whole weight, he dipped his other hand down between their bodies and touched her, making a supreme effort to separate the movements of his hands from those of his hips, rubbing and teasing until he felt it was time and, his body crushing her against the wall, her nails digging into the skin of his back, he allowed his release.

He heard them both crying out before slipping into that blessed moment of light and oblivion that Hermione had defined as resurrection. For a second, it truly felt as if they had both died, their hearts skipping a beat at the same moment and not even the sounds of their breathing cutting through the stillness. The illusion broke as the blood started pounding against Ron's ears and their ragged breaths became audible. Ron's legs and arms were starting to tremble with the effort. He bent his knees carefully and slid to the floor, taking Hermione down with him and settling her on his lap.

She had her eyes closed, but he could feel her heartbeat slowing down to a normal rate against his chest.

'Hermione,' he said, silently praying to whatever forces had brought them there, begging them... 'Hermione, come back.'

She lifted her head slowly and opened her eyes, looking calmly back at him.

'I'm here,' she whispered. And Ron knew it was true.


	7. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Hermione woke up to Ron's soft snoring somewhere over the top of her head. The room was still dark, barely a slice of moonlight coming through a crack between the curtains, but Ron's snores didn't annoy her. It was a comforting sound, and she'd missed it for too long. Her middle-of-the-night awakenings were no longer abrupt and disorienting, as she had no ghosts left to fight, but her sleep wasn't uninterrupted either. She guessed it was because part of her needed to hear him, to make sure he was there, real, with her, and so she lay awake for a while, watching him sleep and thinking. Hermione had a lot to think about of late.

She didn't remember much about that night except that the visions that had tormented her for so long had been more real than ever, and that she, at last, had been able to fight them back. The only crystal-clear memory about that night, however, was opening her eyes to find Ron looking at her, his features relaxing as he let out a relieved sigh and rested his forehead against her, their bodies embracing and entangled on the floor.

'You should rest now,' he'd told her, attempting to smooth her hair out of her face, a feat that was useless but soothed her all the same. 'Sleep. I'll be here.'

'Ron?' she said, settling her head on the crook of his neck.

'Yeah?'

'I love you.' And she'd fallen asleep at once.

He didn't want to talk about the hospital, not about that night, what had happened and what hadn't, how he'd taken her out of there, and not about everything else she'd been through, either, which she knew he'd found out. Hermione didn't want to think about it, even if the only things she could recall were her few moments of clarity, and her last attempt to escape... She wasn't sure if Ron knew it had been her doing or not, but he hadn't mentioned it, in any case.

She slept for a whole day afterwards and woke up with a peace of mind she'd thought she would never have again. Ron had taken her to Grimmauld Place, to a room he seemed to have prepared while she was sleeping so that it looked warm and welcoming, unlike the rest of the house. Later, he'd told her that he hadn't said a word to Harry yet and that, because he didn't want to leave her alone in the house, he would summon Harry and Ginny and tell them there. Ron knew they would be mad, especially as they had been working on a different plan, and he was right. Hermione had heard the yelling all the way from the kitchen in the basement to her room two floors above. They had paid her a visit, once the yelling stopped, with a disgruntled Ron trailing behind them. Ginny had tended to her most recent bruises with the aid of her mum's copy of "The Healer's Helpmate", given her a dose of Invigoration Draught and offered to help her take a bath, which Ron had already taken care of. They told her they were going to stay with her and Ron for a while so they wouldn't be alone in the huge house, and visited her regularly during the day (Neville had dropped by, and Luna as well, who for some very Luna reason kept a little knowing, mysterious smile all the time), but it was Ron who tended to her and stayed with her the most, something for which Hermione was grateful. She wasn't ready to be alone yet.

At times they would talk a lot, Ron telling her about the restorations at Hogwarts and the ongoing rebuilding of the wizarding world, about George reopening Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes with help from every member of his family, about Percy introducing them to his girlfriend, asking her what she'd like to do once she feels better, bringing her old school books and novels, remembering her favourite foods and telling her proudly that he'd helped Kreacher prepare them. They bickered because Ron thought Percy's girlfriend was a nice surprise, as she didn't seem to have a stick up her arse; because he still called Kreacher a nutter; because Hermione had every intention of going back to Hogwarts and Ron didn't, instead planning on taking Kingsley's offer of joining the Aurors without the required N.E.W.T.s; because Hermione wanted him to keep the stubble he'd accidentally grown and Ron complained that it itched like hell, but she knew that inside he was pleased. Other times, they didn't need to talk at all.

Once, after she'd started getting up from the bed and walking through the house on her own, she'd overheard a conversation between Harry and Ron. It was about her parents. Hermione asked Ron later about it, wanting to hear it all directly from him. He stubbornly refused over and over, until she assured him that it was all right, she could take it, and she needed to know.

Hermione thought about it now, in the dark, hearing Ron's breathing. Ron had told her that after listening to her parents under the effects of Veritaserum, Harry had prompted a thorough investigation that involved people from the Ministry and a permission from Kingsley to further question the Grangers and conduct some simple magical tests on them without them knowing. They were hoping to catch one or more Death Eaters who might be responsible for that, believing they had put the Grangers under the Imperius Curse or even Polyjuiced themselves as Hermione's parents, as some sort of revenge against her.

They hadn't been able to find anything.

Ron said that the only other way of finding out for sure the truth about their change of mind apart from torturing them (which, he said, as much as he'd like to hurt them, he wasn't about to do) or siphoning out their memories and seeing them in a Pensieve (which wouldn't work because the memories had to be given willingly), was using Legilimency against them, but he'd wanted to ask Hermione first.

Hermione had an inkling about why Ron had wanted to ask for her permission. She could guess it by the way he had refused to tell her in the first place, how he kept avoiding looking her in the eye as he did, and the furtive glances he shot in her direction, which had become more frequent after she'd found him talking with Harry.

 _Did_ she want to know? Did she want to have her worst fears confirmed, and jeopardize her future, the trust people usually put in her brains and her good judgment, even her personal relationships? Did she want Ron to have proof of what she was capable of doing, what she'd already done once, thinking it was for the best, and what she would do again if she felt the people she loved were in danger?

Because she'd felt in her gut that something was wrong when she modified her parents' memories once again, trying to bring back the real ones, and she'd ignored her apprehension, putting it down to her ever worrying brain.

But the mind is a complex thing, not made to be tampered with even by magic. The truth was, there was no one behind her parents' delusion. No one but Hermione. It was her fault, and she'd paid for it. They had fiddled with her mind as well when they put her in the hospital, unknowingly paying her back in kind, and Hermione knew, deep down, that the clean slate Ron had offered her was nothing but an illusion.

And illusions shattered.


End file.
